Sunday, April 01, 2012

The father of Iowa running back Jordan Canzeri confirmed to Hawkeye Insider Thursday night that an MRI performed on his son revealed that he tore his ACL.

"Dr. (Ned) Amendola said it was the ACL, but the good news is that the rest of the knee is solid," Brian Canzeri said. "He's going to have surgery next week and hopes to get back into practice in September."

Brian Canzeri said that he expects his son to ease into things when he's cleared to practice and will most likely redshirt for the 2012 season.

This is just getting ridiculous. The Black Heart Gold Pants post on the subject is titled, "Jordan Canzeri Tears His ACL Because We Can't Have Nice Things (Or Running Backs)," which yeah, pretty much.

Canzeri has been the only guy on the roster with any meaningful experience since Marcus Coker left either voluntarily or not so voluntarily following a sexual assault accusation right after last season. Coker became the starter when Adam Robinson got booted after a drug arrest. Brandon Wegher would have been there to to take over if he hadn't been arrested and suspended; he ended up transferring to Oklahoma. Robinson took over the starting job when Jewel Hampton tore his ACL for the second time. Etcetera.

Summary: Iowa hasn't had a running back not suffer a career-ending medical/legal situation since the Shonn Greene era (!) ended in 2008. Again: This is just getting ridiculous.

Here's a disturbingly hilarious rundown from BHGP that was posted back when the Coker news came out:

That's fourteen defections by twelve players in seven classes of recruits, and that list doesn't even include Class of 2011 defector Mika'il McCall or Rodney Coe, who failed to qualify. Coker's class still includes De'Andre Johnson; should he leave, that would make it seventeen consecutive defections from fifteen consecutive players.

This is no longer funny. This is a plague, and it has no rhyme or reason beyond its indiscriminate effect on running backs.

Correction: This is no longer funny for them. The best part about the Canzeri thing is that it was so incredibly predictable that the now-tweeting AIRBHG (yup) declared its inevitability like four months ago:

As for Iowa ... umm ... yikes. A cursory glance at the roster shows a grand total of 28 career carries for 99 yards between everybody labeled with an "RB." In case you're wondering, 18 of those belong to junior De'Andre Johnson and 10 belong to sophomore Damon Bullock, who is now listed as the starter but will presumably be struck down by a bolt of lightning or whatever. Moderately highly touted recruit Greg Garmon might see the field ASAP if he comes in physically ready to play, although it should be noted that he just recently recovered from cancer (he also watched his family's house burn down several years ago and clearly was destined to play running back at Iowa).

I'll cede my closing remarks to BHGP:

Ah, Iowa running back: where opportunity is always knocking. But don't answer: it's AIRBHG and he has a crowbar aimed right at your knee, you sad, hopeless bastard.